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THE ELECTORAL ACT 2010 (AMENDMENT) BILL
Following the President’s decision to decline assent to the Electoral Act 2010 (Amendment) Bill, Nigerians are currently waiting, with bated breath, for the next move of the National Assembly. The options available to the National Assembly are legion. There is the power to override the President’s veto, as per Section 58 (5) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), which last happened in 2000 during the debacle on the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), where the lawmakers vetoed the then President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, who had rejected the bill which was earlier transmitted to him after passage.
There is also the option of reworking the bill, with a view to removing the contentious provision(s), and transmit same to the President for his assent; there is the further option of jettisoning the bill in its entirety. The state of affairs has clearly lit the blue touch paper on the debate on the appropriate procedure of overriding the President’s veto. There is, for example, the position that it could be done by two-third majority of the members present and voting. Yet, scholars of constitutional law are simply dazed or confused by this position, pointing to Section 59 (4) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), which requires a two-third majority of members of both houses at a joint meeting for a bill to become law. This would require 240 members of the House of Representatives and 73 Senators in the Senate. The Electoral Act 2010 (Amendment) Bill is, clearly, a very fundamental piece of legislation with a vast array of innovations that can advance Nigeria’s democratic process which, to say the least, has been in tatters since the return of democracy in 1999.
This is, therefore, not the time for the National Assembly to chicken out or stick to the status quo. On the contrary, this is a moment in history when they have a chance to move the dial and change the narrative from the ashes of uncertainty and despair to stability and hope. There is not just the responsibility to do it, there is now the opportunity. Nigerians are watching.
Kesiena Igho Oghoghorie, Abuja